One of the most helpless feelings is being lost at sea. The accepted method of searching for a person lost at sea is to utilize as many aircraft as possible with human lookouts. These aircraft, many of which are helicopters, undertake a pattern of search which is hopefully in the area of the lost person. The procedure is the same for lost objects, such as instrumentation which is lost overboard or unmoored from an anchor. The performance of the human observer is dependent upon many conditions, such as: state of training of the observer, his alertness, his incentive and fatigue level, the suitability of the lookout position, interference with other duties, sun angle, weather, flight speed and altitude, and size, color and behavior of the lost object or person. In spite of the training which is undertaken to optimize the human observers capabilities, his main impediment is the capability of his eyes. Many birds have eyes which are much superior to a human's eyes. Birds eyes enable them to identify dangerous prey or articles of food at great distance for survival purposes. Prior work to utilize the eyes of a pigeon was undertaken by Skinner during and subsequent to World War II. Skinner's research involved utilizing a trained pigeon in a transparent nosecone of a missile for guiding the missile to a target. There is no known research utilizing a bird, such as a pigeon for search purposes.